Notorious Megaupload.com kingpin Kim Dotcom has been relieved of his electronic monitoring cuffs and is returning to graze in his NZ$30 million mansionette rental in suburban Auckland.
Dotcom is on bail awaiting an extradition hearing to the US. He and his co-accused, Mathias Ortmann, Fin Batato and Bram Van der Kolk are …

What FBI stands for

Uncancel your holiday

There's every sign that the NZ govt is sliding down the greasy pole it got itself up. They want to stay in good odour with the US govt but sort of overlooked all the dubious aspects of this case; it's gradually falling apart. Anyway, don't blame the rest of the country, all they did was vote for the present govt even though nobody liked its main policies...

Extradition may never happen

Given that the US judge handling the case involving MegaUpload asserts that may never happen - because the US authorities never served papers, in turn because constitutionally they can't on a foreign company - it seems entirely possible he may never be extradited at all.

NZ law requires that the extraditable offence carry a minimum period (five years) custodial sentence. The remaining ones don't.

Shonky John

FBI still took evidence from NZ illegally, NZ police still did a ganster type raid full of black opps and extra octane. If NZ politicians have their way, they will still be happily bending over for the US of A. Soon they'll sign the TPM free trade agreement and the US will be able to come over and do what ever they like.

I have no doubt the guy is morally bankrupt, that is the way to succeed in business and banking these days. It is just that some US companies that apparently own the US govt don't like the game when it is played against them.

So I hope he walks away with a huge cheque from the US for their trouble.

Whether any charges are brought against Dotcom now is irrelevant as the US movie industry has got what it wanted and Megaupload is no more, and even if it does come back it will no one is going to trust it for uploading their stuff as there will be too many doubts of how long they would last.

So who ya gonna call?

If it doesn't break him it is already making him stronger. The publicity he's getting would have seen to that alone if it wasn't overwhelmed by the publicity the whole of the USA is getting from it.

The world aught to vote the digital rights people a planetary treasure.

It's a classic of American politics, right up there just under slavery, genocide and communist witch hunts; alongside the Debs Decision, Freedom Riders, and Mohammed Ali's stand against the Vietnam war. Long may the RFBIAA never accomplish anything more.

What we need in this country is some fat chav like Dotcom to stand for politics.

That's how we got the Conservatives, right?

Ah...

Except we'll probably end up with another fat drunk giving half of Europe to Russia again.

I just remembered.

Blast!

I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects' plan to save the world bites the dust.

Cyber crimes are starting to show a flaw in the concept of extradition.

Where did the crime actually take place - was it in the US or outside the US? And where was dotcom when the crime was committed - inside the US, or outside the US?

The logical conclusion is that any state in the world could request the extradition of anyone anywhere because they have breach a law in that state, even if they did not commit a crime in their own country. Example - Saudi Arabia requesting the extradition of homosexuals from the UK, even though they've never visited Saudi.

OK, so this may be an extreme conclusion, but until we as a planet agree the limits of jurisdiction, these examples remain plausible.

Velv

Serious backpeddling here. I can see a time in some months where the case will just quietly peter out. Bit by bit, different parts of the case will be dropped until eventually the case no longer exists, but there won't be any annoucement saying this.